I know the pantomime season is almost upon us, but there was no need for West Dunbartonshire Council to write the script.

It’s a laugh a minute going through their plans for a new secondary school at Posties Park.

At least it would be if this important matter were not so serious.

I noticed when I was down the town the other day that the council has erected signs warning the public that they use the quay at their own risk.

Does this mean that 1000 pupils and 100 teachers will be asked to go to school each day “at their own risk”? Surely not?

These signs are another clear indication that the whole area around the River Leven at Dumbarton carries an element of danger.

This is no place to build a school. If there was no danger then there would be no need for warning signs.

It’s not so long since there were lifebelts on the quay, but they were vandalised and never replaced.

They weren’t put there because nobody ever falls in.

If there was an accident involving any child going to school from the quay then it is likely that the council would be held to be negligent.

I know that finance is the major consideration here and that public opinion, aesthetics and the environment do not come into it (not for the council anyway).

But should the council not change tack immediately and pursue the option to build the new OLSP on the Monument Park in Castlehill?

It would be helpful, of course, had officials researched this matter more thoroughly and not give the impression they had contacted organisations with which they had never been in touch – and if the consultation document was not quite so loaded in favour of the Posties Park site.

Why don’t the council eat humble pie for once and admit they got this whole thing wrong?

Hubris is a terrible curse which seems to afflict people in politics more than anywhere else.

The local authority should now produce a plan for Monument Park or any other site which would be acceptable to the Scottish Government.

Hopefully this would meet the conditions and timetable attached to financing the new school in tandem with a similar project in Renfrewshire.

It would be a disgrace if more public money were to be squandered on this current nonsense.

We don’t want to see the good name of Dumbarton dragged through the appeal courts and the council made to look a laughing stock in the eyes of the country.

Posties Park is a swamp polluted with asbestos, ammunitions, poisonous paint and other detritus.

If any heavy construction were to be placed on or near it then the whole cat and caboodle would most probably slip back where it came from – the bottom of the Leven.

However, councillors tell me they can’t discuss the matter because their lawyers have stepped in and told them not to.

To this I say the councillors holding to this view are not only foolish, they’re fearties. Just because you have been given legal advice you don’t have to take it.

Legal advice is often used as a flag of convenience to put an end to questions that politicians find difficult to answer.

It’s almost tantamount to a gagging clause – and we know what most people think about those things.

It is only advice after all, but that word ‘legal’ seems to scare people to death.

I seem to recall another rump of council officials in these parts who thought they could tell the elected members what to do.

Thankfully, they are not around any more.

Elected members should be standing up for the people they represent and not cowed into silence.

I sincerely hope the councillors have done their homework on this one.

The documents I have read make it clear that Posties is a public park and that it’s a wasteland so far as any construction projects are concerned.

Cuttings from the Lennox Herald from last century and the century before indicate the dangers listed above.

Should any heavy structure be erected on the Posties/Woodyard/Sandpoint site there would most probably be a landslip which would lead to collapse of the retaining wall along the riverbank.

A blindfolded man could see there would be real dangers to the pupils were the council to site a school there.

The council’s own “at your own risk” notices on the quay are just one small but important indication that Posties Park is a complete non starter for a school.

Had our council education and planning officials done their homework they would have known this from the very outset.